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Everyone wants a more inclusive, open democratic political party. I’ve no argument with that in this article about Prime Minister Trudeau, Party President Anna Gainey and also National Membership Secretary Leanne Bourassa, (who wasn’t quoted in the article, but has posted her support of this on Facebook) supporting that type of reform for the Liberal Party of Canada. The risks comes with what Warren is worrying about over here – open it up too much and completely do away with the traditional party structure, and you get the risk of special interests hijacking the party to their own narrow agenda.

There was a lot of activity happening this past Friday and Saturday in Brantford-Brant where my friend Danielle Takacs is running. On Friday, the Honourable John McCallum came down to the riding to spend a half day with Danielle greeting people and talking to them at the Via Rail Train Station about the Fairness plan. This was the 2nd visit by Mr. McCallum in the past 3 months in support of Danielle and the local campaign. We were also joined by former Brant MP Lloyd St. Amand at the Station. They then proceeded to the Chartwell Seniors Residence Home, where they discusses seniors […]

Another in my series of blog interviews I’ve done with LPC candidates, nomination candidates – today I am pleased to have done an interview with Howard Rabb, one of the Liberal nomination contestants in the riding of Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas. That nomination meeting is coming up in a couple of days (Nov 25 I believe) so I thank Howard for taking the time away from preparing for that to answer these questions!

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For those who haven’t visited your website yet, can you tell our readers why you’ve decided to run for the nomination?

I have been unhappy with the direction our country has been heading in for the past […]

I’ve sufficiently recovered from lack of sleep Monday night to comment on the byelections Monday evening and specifically the Oshawa-Whitby byelection, where LPC candidate Celina Caesar-Chanvannes came up just a bit short in her efforts to win the seat. Still, it should be considered a good night for Liberals. Their vote total jumped from 14% in 2011 against Jim Flaherty to 41% – a 3x increase in votes (in the Yellowhead Alberta riding, they went from 3% to 20%). If we get a uniform increase of those types of numbers in targeted and priority ridings in 2015, combined with a collapse in NDP vote, which has a couple of pundits […]

Here is another in a series of interviews that Liberal candidates or nomination contestants have done with me; this time it is with Joy Davies, a Liberal nomination contestant in the BC riding of South Surrey-White Rock. I thank her for participating and giving Liberals out there and nationally her views on the questions I submitted to her

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For those who don’t know you/haven’t visited your website yet, can you tell our readers why you’ve decided to run for the nomination?

In April 2014 one of my riding association’s Directors at Large asked if I would consider putting my hat in the ring to become the Candidate. I […]

Yesterday, I was discussing in a Facebook Liberal thread Anita Vandenbeld’s win as the next candidate to represent the LPC in Ottawa-Nepean, and the fact that of 635 votes cast, there were 64 “spoiled ballots” – a rather high number (10%) for a nomination meeting, particularly with 3 high-profile candidates running in it.

The issue came up of whether the fact that the Ranked Ballot was being used here because of multiple candidates confused some people. I don’t know if that was the case or not (I’ve heard that most of the 10% were “exhausted” ballots – that is, people for the 3rd place finisher did not mark down or […]

One of the advantages of going to a LPC(O) Conference is you sometimes unexpectedly meet candidates or nomination contestants. That was the case this past weekend in London when through an acquaintance, I met Cathy MacLellan, who is a nomination contestant in the riding of Waterloo, a new riding created by Elections Canada due to electoral redistribution. She was aware of my blog and past interviews it seems, so I asked if she’d like to participate in one. to which she agreed to. This is a riding that is being vigourously contested by several Liberal candidates or would-be candidatures, so it will be an interesting race to watch. I thank […]

I had the great privilege and honour to be in Brantford last evening for the nomination of my good friend Danielle Takacs; she is now the Liberal candidate for the riding of Brantford-Brant. My fellow blogger Jeff Jedras has also done a blogpost on Danielle which he listed all of her extensive accomplishments she has already done and still a part of, so I won’t go into that list – you may read them at your leisure over at his site. Rather, I’ll mention that it was an amazing night, with an overflow crowd of 100 – I’ll admit, we didn’t know what to expect for crowd size, but […]

Following up on yesterday’s interview with David Graham, today we have an interview conducted with Karen McCrimmon, Liberal Party nomination hopeful in the riding of Kanata-Carleton. My thanks to Karen for taking time out of her busy schedule to do this interview with me. ———– 1. What made you decide you wanted to run to be the official candidate for the Liberals in your riding of Kanata-Carleton?

I first ran for the Liberals in the 2011 Federal election in the riding of Carleton-Mississippi Mills. I had been very disheartened with the direction that Canada was taking under the Harper government. I soon realized that the best way that I […]

Yes, I’m still here.. or the blog is. I’m waiting on a couple of interview submissions to some LPC nominees/candidates that have gotten delayed… and I’m waiting on writing another blogpost for a nomination race – hopefully the end of this week.

To be honest, I can’t wait until Parliament resumes.. as there will be much more juicy material to write on. Municipal elections also come up in October- and while I don’t write on them often, I’ve reason to this time.. I’ve already mentioned I’ve endorsed a couple of candidates for Toronto city council (Dan Fox in Ward 24 and Kate Holloway in Ward 20) and I’m watching with […]